Spartacus MMXII may have only taken 6 days to shoot, unlike pirates that took 30 days however we did spend over 5 months inbetween work as performers to plan design and build all the sets outfits and weapons for this production.
We also shot some trailers and test scenes to decide on how we wanted our creation to look on screen. After the priciple photography was complete there was a few stages the movie would need to go through 1st of which was for myself to construct a basic look style and previz cut so the man chosen to put togther this movie would know exactly what i wanted.
while that was going on the editor would need to convert the high speed 2 k footage in to a format that final cut could read and the overal movie files in to a high quality pro res codec, after a few sit downs month had gone by and it was time to hand off the parts of the high speed action stunts to the cgi specialist to begin painting out frame by frame the wires and taking out the green screen which was used in a couple of shots.
Now in to september 2 months had past and i had 40 sex scenes to cut for the 5 versions of the movie, with my my rough edit complete and in the hands of the editor it became obvious that we would not be ready for the AVN AWARDS and now with so much to do my editor had a confilct with his work schedule that ment he would not be able to continue until December on the production, so i decided as i was cutting the sex scenes i would cut the whole movie while i search for the perfect soundtract to put with this epic film.
It was now january and 6 months had past most of the movie was complete but i was still waiting on my cgi effects and they were not yet done, By this time i realized rushing was not going to make this film better and without my effects i could not complete the fight sequences, so we began cutting them anyway, Just before AVN i was were done and with still nothing from our cgi guy who was now deeply involved in a huge mainstream project, So i called upon our close friend in canada to have one of his effects guys to finish up the cgi work.
7 days later after i had sent him the parts i needed it was done and the final footage was complete and we were able to drop it on to the timeline, i added the music sound effects foley and output the movie so i could watch it on a big screen with the team.
I noticed that apart from some minor mistake timing issues and colour and grading changes, I needed to get the publics oppion as i felt it was missing something, so we decided to screen the rough cut to 50 couples in vegas over the AVN weekend, The film was a hit even as it was still not complete and had still much tweeking to go they loved it saying it was the most moving and erotic adult feature film they had ever seen.
Now we knew we were on the right track it was time to sharpen the edit up, by April the grading and colouring was finalised and after waching it a few more times as a group i still felt there was a few shots missing that on paper did not look important but now not seeing it on the screen i felt they was hole that needed to be filled, So we took out my camera in to the horse arena where our sets still stood i got back in to my Spartacus fighting amour and picked up a few key shots to tighten up the movie making it flow better.
May arrived and my final edit was complete, time to watch it again and allow Wicked pictures there first look at the movie they would be distributing for us, They loved it and now it needed to go to quality control and have some fresh eyes to see if we had missed anything else, As usual with a qc there are pages of notes mentioning ocd meaning (off camera direction) noises they they think might be a mistakes which often is not, once we completed those changes i decided to watch it once more to treble check the film and i found by going frame by fame other issues which i could not leave in even though it would never be seen by the veiwer i had seen a floor and it would just eat at me, Now its late june and nearly a year has passed since we shot this movie and people are asking will this ever come out, Well yes it will and beacuse this movie is an independant production and no one could tell us how to shoot what to shoot or when i needed to be completed by making this film is special and untainted by the porno format placed upon most adult movies, So when it hits the streets at the end of the summer i hope everyone appreciates the hard work time efforts of all involved in bringing you all a movie that in my eyes is the best adult feature film made in the last decade and the most truthful sexually acted remake (NOT PARODY) of historic story of the man who defied an empire to stand for what he beleaved was everyman right to be free.
